Disclaimer: found in part one.

Maude had first met Carlton at a party in New Orleans after Ezra?s father, Daniel?s death. Daniel had been and still was the only man she?d ever really loved, or trusted. She had been devastated when he came to such an untimely death at the age of twenty-six. She was only twenty-four with a four-year-old son and next to no income plus the fact that she was heart-broken, this all made an easy target for the monstrosity named Carlton DeCapri. To him she was young, beautiful, sexy, refined and most importantly vulnerable. He soon found out that she also gave him the perfect tool for blackmail, a little boy whom she absolutely adored. Oh, at first he?d treated her and Ezra like royalty but the minute they said ?I do? that was over. His one and only rule became Obey or else. She always shuddered when she remembered the numerous ?or else?s? that she and most unfortunately Ezra had endured. That is until they day she picked up her son and walked out of that hellhole with nothing but the clothes on her back.

Maude had never been the same after her marriage to the man. The only reason he had granted her a divorce was because she had threatened to show the scars he?d given to her and Ezra to the general public at large. Namely one, Christopher B. Canton, a judge, who weelded considerable power and fried any man who abused women, that is after his daughter had been murdered by her abusive husband. Yes, that time she had won his sick and twisted mind game but her life had more or less ended. She may have been able to save her life and the life of her little boy but it had been at the cost of her heart and soul. She had loved Carlton when she married him, but with every time he forced himself on her and with every time he beat up her or Ezra she hardened a little bit more until all that was left was the Maude Standish that her son knew. It was a real pity that Ezra couldn?t have known the woman that married his father, that gave birth to him, because she and Maude were two different people entirely. Certainly she loved Ezra more then anything in the world, she just couldn?t bring herself to admit it. She couldn?t bring herself to admit that she loved anything besides the material possessions in life, because as far as she was concerned material possessions were the only thing that never left.

As Maude continued to ponder the occurences of the past twelve hours she felt an involuntary wave of guilt flood through her body. This was all her fault. Once again she had managed to screw up her sons life. She couldn?t help but wonder how many times she could do that.

~*~

Six riders approached the campsite. Once it came into their view they immediately recognized the remnants of a fire and Vin pointed out where the three kidnappers had slept two nights ago. The men looked around hoping to find some sign of Buck or Ezra.

"Vin, Nathan, and JD, you head over in that direction and Josiah and I will head over to the creek. Yell if you find anything, we?ll do the same," Chris commanded as all the men were already heading in their assigned directions not even thinking twice about following what he said to do. Chris walked only a few paces behind Josiah.

"Chris," Josiah called him over. "Look at this," he pointed to blood and the ground and signs of some sort of struggle.

"We should get Vin over here, he may actually be able to tell us what this means," Chris stated somewhat absently. Josiah look up at Chris and noticed that the man seemed transfixed with the fairly large amount of blood that covered the ground.

"They?ll be alright, Chris. I truly believe that, we need to keep the faith. Brothers Buck and Ezra are tough and smart. They will make it through," Josiah stated with such honesty that the snub Chris normally would have given any statement involving faith didn?t come. All he could do was nod and pray that Josiah was right. They had to be okay, right?

"Vin!" Chris called and looked toward Josiah with clear appreciation in his eyes. Josiah simply nodded toward the black-clad gunslinger in a show that there was nothing to appreciate, that he?d simply spoken the truth.

"Chris, you gotta come hear!" They heard JD yell in a voice that was something between horrified and totally sickened.

Just as Chris was about to ask them what in hell was going on Vin appeared through the brush. "Vin, there?s some blood on the ground here, we figured it would be best if you looked around and tried to put together what happened."

"I?ll do that Chris. But you best git over to Nathan and JD-" Vin said.

"What?d you find?" Chris interrupted him.

"A dead body, figure he was one of our kidnappers."

"How?d he die?" Josiah asked, taking it as a good sign but finding more questions rise in his mind. Like, if one of the kidnappers was dead where were the other two? Who killed him? Why?d they just leave him? And where the hell were Buck and Ezra in this mess?

"Nate says he died from head trauma or somethin? like that. Says he got hit over the head so hard that his skull broke. You should ask him Josiah, he?s figurin? out all sorts of things from it. Hell of a nasty scene though, poor kid done throw up when he seen it." Vin said, speaking with an absent quality to his voice. He was deep in investigation of the ground and the scene which Chris and Josiah had found.

The moment he finished speaking Chris headed toward Nate, JD, and the dead kidnapper. "I?ll be back here as soon as I?m done talking to Nathan. Vin, Josiah try to figure out what happened here," he said as he walked away.

~*~

"Come now Buck, you have got to drink," Ezra pleaded gently with a less than semi-conscious Wilmington. All Ezra got in response was a pain-filled, incoherent moan. So Ezra continued to sit, applying pressure to Buck?s wound. The bleeding seemed to have stopped but it was all he could do and he feared that if he stopped it would begin to bleed again. He could no longer jolt Buck into consciousness and was growing more and more worried as the ladies man continued to go deeper and deeper into oblivion.

Ezra sat cross-legged next to Buck. His face was deep purple and black. His ribs cracked and broken, his lip was swollen and bleeding from being punched endlessly on three separate occasions since his arrival in this hellhole Carlton DeCarpi called home. On the upside, if one could possibly see any upside in the whole situation, Ezra had not been forced to see DeCapri yet. However he knew it was only a matter of time. And he dreaded it. Although, he thought, if he was forced to deal with DeCapri he might find out why the son of a bitch wanted him after all this time. He was getting a sickening feeling that he might know. That this whole thing might be an attempt to get his mother but Ezra shook those thoughts away. They were too hard to deal with. If that were the case then not only was DeCapri using him as a tool for the blackmail of his mother but also Buck had been injured, perhaps even killed, because his mother had married a lunatic twenty years ago. However, the more Ezra thought about it the more he realized how much it made sense. A shutter shot up his spine as his overwhelmed mind continued to dwell on his current misery. His broken battered body ached but somehow not only didn?t he care anymore, it really didn?t hurt that much. How could it? His mental and emotional states were much more hurt than anything they could ever do to his body. Besides, as he looked at Buck who was, despite his total incoherence, in such pain that now and again his body would have tremors and his face would get such a pain-filled visage that Ezra couldn?t help but think how inconsequential his injuries were.

~*~

"Good God," Chris stated as he looked at the dead body before him. It was a gruesome scene. The man?s head had swelled to a far larger size than it must have originally been it was no longer the right shape and the place where his brain looked as if it was at least double its proper size but the lower part of his head was about normal size. There was bone and brain clear to see through the massively destructive wound that had been made in his skull. Chris had seen a lot of gore in his life, he was a soldier during the war and a gunslinger, half the time he was the one who made the gory scenes. But in all his life this was one of the uglier things he?d seen. Chris turned away from the gore to talk to Nathan, who stood a few feet behind him.

"Like Vin told you Chris, he was hit in the head with a blunt object. He was struck so hard that his skull broke and a piece of the bone went into his brain causing massive bleeding. He probably died within seconds of being hit." Nathan spoke dispassionately.

"Nate," Vin and Josiah had rejoined the rest of the group. Vin having mapped out what happened on the other side of the camp very quickly. "That blood on the ground closer to the path, is that his?" Vin gestured to the blood that soiled the dirt near the path that lead up to where the men had obviously kept their horses the night that they stayed there.

Nathan studied the ground, the man, and the blood a moment before answering. "No," he said somewhat surprised that he hadn?t noticed that himself.

"You think you know what happened here, Vin?" Chris asked knowing that Vin was there best chance of figuring out what had happened there and to their friends.

"Yeah, I think I might have figured it out," he spoke with a haunted, even scared look in his eyes.

"Well, Vin, tell us," Chris said.

"I could be wrong," Vin spoke very quietly, his voice telling the four men around him that he hoped that was the case.

"Just tell us, Vin," Chris demanded.

"Well, over on the other side it looks like that?s where they was keepin? Ez and Buck. It didn?t seem like nothin? special was over there and I couldn?t figure out where that blood had come from. That is until I recognized those damn boots Buck wears everywhere. I knew they were his right away, hell he refuses to where anything else. Anyway I followed his tracks in circles until they lead to a tree. From there, it looks like he climbed up the tree. But there were no tracks showing him climbing down the tree, besides all I could think was why in hell would he wanna climb a damn tree in the first place then it hit me. I walked over to the blood and just like I thought there were tracks beginning right near it. I reckon that Buck climbed up that tree and when one of the men come to get him and Ez up for the day he swung down and kicked the son of a bitch in the head," Vin paused.

"What happened after that?" JD asked eager to hear what Buck had done next. Well I found that those tracks headed over this way and-" Vin stopped having a hard time trying to say what he thought came next.

"Go on, Vin," Chris spoke warily, having a very bad feeling he knew what Vin was going to say before he said it.

"Well I think and the same time he hit this fella, this guy shot him," Vin finished quickly.

"Whoa there Vin, how do ya know he shot Buck maybe he just hit him," Nathan countered optimistically, hopeful that he was right and Vin was wrong.

"This is how I know," Vin spoke quietly not the least bit upset with Nathan?s words. He hoped more then anything that he was wrong but the evidence was very clear. He quickly walked over to the tree that had been right behind Buck and removed the dry, blood-covered bullet that had been lodged in the tree trunk. Upon seeing Vin?s discovery, along with Buck?s boot prints, and how much the story Vin somehow managed to put together made sense all the men had to assume the worst and concede that the chances were better then not that Vin?s story was correct.

"Well," Chris began, "We?d best get movin? now, looks like the situation just got even more desperate."

"Yeah," JD agreed outloud.

"Vin, you still have the trail, right?"

"Yeah, we best bring the horses over, the trail starts from right here."

Her mind continued to wander in the well of her tortured thoughts when thump of hooves approaching broke from her thoughts. She found herself looking out the window and to her surprise she recognized the five fearsome looking riders that rapidly approached the stagecoach. They were five of the ruffians her son chose to work with. What are they doing here? She asked herself unwilling to believe that they were coming to rescue her son. She didn?t have that much faith in the human species anymore. Especially in a bunch of no-good gunslingers who had only known her son for two years. Still, she had an involuntary flicker of hope when she saw them. She felt that she had to at least talk to them. Perhaps, they were headed to rescue her son, they could all work together. She forced herself, then, rather abruptly to stop those thoughts. How could she trust these men? She had that answer though, she had no choice, she could save Ezra herself, and she had to save him, or die trying.

"Driver," She called, all the dainty and lady-like dignity gone from her voice. Just her true southern accent and the determined voice of the real Maude Standish. "Stop this stage!"

"What?" The driver yelled back unbelieving that this woman who had made him leave early would want to stop. Besides that there were a bunch off gunslingers, probably robbers riding up on them. She must be insane.

"Lady you?ve got to be crazy, I ain?t stopping look at them men followin? us!"

"I know those men, they are LAWMEN. You stop this stage coach right now-"

"I don?t believe for a second they?re lawmen. And I ain?t stoppin? and a litt?l thing like you couldn?t stop me, although I wouldn?t argua to you tryin?," The driver aged in his mid-fifties yelled momentarily forgetting his trouble and completely unprepared for the beautiful southern women?s reaction. That is until he heard the distinct and unmistakable click of a gun.

"If you?d like to keep that useless little brain inside your skull you will stop this coach this moment. And do not think for a second I will hesitate to blow your fucking brains out," She spoke quietly, and calmly but there was a tone and menace to her voice that immediately told the driver she wasn?t bluffing. As he felt the cold metal of her gun press against the skin of his temple he immediately pulled the horses to a stop.

~*~

"Wonder what?s goin? on with that coach?" Nathan commented to no one in particular.

"Don?t know, but I?m sure we?ll find out in a minute," Chris answered finding himself just a little bit curious despite their dire situation.

~*~

Ezra?s mind whirled as words and fists and feet came at him in a spinning daze that was making him naucious. Absently, he wondered whether it was the beating or the man talking to him that was making him sick. He could no longer understand the words that came out of Carlton DeCapri?s mouth. Truthfully he no longer cared, either. He had spent the better part of his twenty-eight years with a fear of this man whenever he thought of him. For years and years after Maude?s marriage to him Ezra would still have nightmares of the things that had happened to him and his mother on the big plantation in South Carolina of Carlton DeCapri?s that they had all lived on. Although when he thought of the years of his childhood spent in this man?s home a shutter of fear would spread down his spine and his palms would sweat and the frightening images of a childhood gone terribly wrong would come at him with a force he could not fight. However, at this particular moment in time Ezra decided that under no circumstances would he, a normally healthy twenty-eight year old man, be afraid of the old man that stood before him allowing his rather large goons to beat the crap out of his person. Where this sudden urge of mental toughness, of revolt against a long-lasting childhood fear, or whatever else you want to call it came from, Ezra could not tell you. However, he was suddenly very sure that it had come just in time. It was an epiphany that Ezra would need in the coming time more than any other realization he would ever have in his life.

~*~

"Gentlemen," Maude spoke as the five riders slowed to see about her stage, without their knowing that it was her stage.

"Maude," Josiah began. "What are you doing here?"

"I was about to ask you the same thing, Josiah," Maude spoke in her very typical tone of voice and southern accent.

"Cut the crap, we are here to get Ezra. Now, I now you?re here for the exact same thing so spill what you know and hopefully we can get him and Buck back in one piece before it?s too late," Chris deadpanned the tip-toeing around the subject.

"Buck was apprehended as well?" She asked, genuinely surprised and more of Carlton?s plan seeping into her mind from her short association with the man.

"Yeah, now tell us what you know so we can get them out," Chris commanded hurriedly.

"Wait just a minute, Mr. Larabee," Maude spoke with a commanding, yet motherly voice and sent him a look that even Chris couldn?t question or defy. "I don?t believe that you have any clue about what this whole thing is really about. Frankly, we need each other, regardless of how much it grieves me to say it."

"So, Maude what is this about?" Josiah asked feeling a need to move on in this conversation and also eager to finally learn what this whole thing was all about.

"I suppose I have no choice but to tell you," She spoke gravely. "The man who kidnapped Ezra and apparently Mr. Wilmington as well is an odious little bug named Carlton DeCapri. I was married to him for four years," her sigh was a near moan as she continued her story, and all the men were surprised and shocked at the truthfulness and the raw pain they heard in her voice. "And for four years he made my and Ezra?s life a living hell. I was his slave in every way and if I ever refused to do anything he commanded of me he would not only take it out on me but on Ezra as well." As she spoke they could see tears welling up in her aqua-marine eyes and all present could sense that the emotional dam that hid her emotions from the world was about to topple down. However she continued warily, "Despite the terrible treatment the was and apparently still is obsessive and I?m his obsession. When finally worked up enough courage to gather up my son and leave Carlton he caught us long enough to vow he would get me for doing this to him someday. I guess I just always hoped that this day would never come and I hadn?t for so long?I suppose I allowed myself to much comfort. I thought that by now at least Ezra would be safe from him, but I was wrong about that too, wasn?t I?" she finished warily. Tears had begun to silently fall and she closed her eyes as if that could shut out the pain she was enduring.

No one knew what to say to the distressed woman. They had all thought Maude to be cold-hearted and cruel to Ezra. She always seemed so aloof and uncaring. And she was. However none of them ever expected to hear something like this. To hear a tale from her that might explain her actions and her behavior. What was more, was that they all sincerely believed her. The raw pain, the truthfulness, the self-incriminating tone of voice made them believe. This was not a woman looking for sympathy but a woman in pain and afraid of losing all she had left, her son.

Maude looked down thinking she?d made a mistake in telling them. Afraid that yet again she would be humiliated, attacked, or dragged through the mud or all of these things. She chastised herself for allowing her emotions to get the best of her. She was deeply ashamed of her crying in front of these men, showing her own weakness. She had learned the hard way that showing weakness will only help people to hurt and take advantage of you. She tried to stop the tears but they flowed freely and she had no control over them, especially as she though of her precious son in the hands of Carlton DeCapri. She couldn?t help but shudder at the thought.

As if sensing Maude?s fear and doubts, Chris spoke up, surprising everyone including himself, "We believe you," he spoke for them all. Maude looked up, surprised at his words.

"Really?"

"Yeah, now you got any plans on how to save Ezra and Buck?"

"I might have one," she spoke, smiling deviously through her tears, bringing hope to the men around her. After all, no one would argue that Maude wasn't a force of nature in and of herself.